Between Boyfriends (7 page)

“He was also at the sex party,” Lindsay explained. “And he’s up to five twenty-seven.”

There was a moment of silence as we all realized what an accomplishment that was and what a pleasure 527 continuous penetrations could be. I watched Fuck Counter dancing with some hot boy and allowed myself a moment of pride in knowing that I had helped him on his way to becoming the super top that he obviously was. I noticed a stirring in my jeans and wondered if perhaps I had been too hasty in rejecting Fuck Counter or was I just getting horny again, even though it was only three hours since I had made imaginary love to Aiden? All thoughts of sex, however, were thrust from my head as I spied Sebastian dancing on top of the bar, thrusting his hips wildly, wearing only a stained white jockstrap. He would now have to add
go-go boy
to the career blank on his tax returns.

“Do you think he does it for the ego trip?” I asked.

“I think he does it for the tips,” Lindsay corrected.

We watched Sebastian gyrate and grind in front of an eager throng of barflies, allowing eager fingers to stick dollar bills in his jockstrap, his socks, and even in the crack of his eager ass. Then we noticed he kept stopping to gyrate in front of one pair of eager fingers that belonged to a man who had to be at least seventy years old. A real-world seventy, not a gay seventy, which would be around fifty-two. These eager fingers belonged to an honest-to-goodness gay senior citizen.

“What the hell is he doing now?” Flynn asked.

“He’s encouraging that poor old thing!” Lindsay cried.

It definitely looked as if Sebastian was encouraging the senior sinner, for he was poised directly in front of him, kneeling on one knee, pushing his crotch oh-so-close to the man’s wrinkled face, and whispering into his most likely hair-filled ear. Lindsay squinted and then opened his eyes in stunned disbelief.

“That’s no poor old thing!” Lindsay declared. “He’s shoving fifty-dollar bills up Sebastian’s ass!”

Suddenly Sebastian jumped off the bar and started sashaying toward us. When he got close enough he waved a fifty-dollar bill under our noses and I caught the faintest whiff of vinegar.

“I’m off to get ramgeezered,” Sebastian announced.

“You’re going to let that old man fuck you?” Lindsay asked.

“
Mi amiga,
papi need a new Jack Spade bag,” he said. “It’ll be worth it.”

We watched Sebastian walk toward the go-go boy changing room, his perfect ass flexing and unflexing with each stride as if it were waving good-bye to the boys who would have to wait yet another night, or at least another few hours, to have the chance to make an entrance.

“Do you think he has a Granddaddy complex?” I asked.

“No,” Flynn answered. “He’s just a whore.”

“Now every time he slings his bag over his shoulder he’ll be reminded that he slung his legs over the shoulders of some old bag,” Lindsay added. “Even Jack Spade’s not worth a memory like that.”

After a few more drinks we decided it was time to go. Actually I decided it was time I should go. Gus was off with Brady somewhere, Lindsay was dancing near Fuck Counter hoping it might add up to another chance encounter, and Flynn had bumped into an old flame and decided to see if the embers could still burn for one more night. On my way out I had a bump of my own.

“Sorry,” I stuttered.

“That’s okay,” the bumpee responded.

Fighting every urge to speak, I forced myself to remain quiet and just take in this moment. The music was blaring all around me, the lights were flashing above and below, sweaty arms were brushing against me, but I kept silent and stared ahead into one of the most beautiful faces I had ever seen. Full red lips, smooth ivory skin with creases at the ice blue eyes and around the mouth to prove it was real, and a thick mane of blond hair that fell loose and carefree on the forehead. This face looked back at me with what I interpreted as equal wonder and all the insecurities Frank had ignited in me were extinguished. I wasn’t a loser like the last time and the time before and this beautiful man in front of me would prove that. Unfortunately, the beautiful man behind him would unravel my newfound confidence and take from me another chance for happiness with one sentence:

“Come on, Brian, I love this song!”

With those words Brian’s beautiful face was whisked away from me and dragged onto the dance floor as a Cher tune pulsated through the air. I saw him glance back at me and I tried to follow him, but just then the DJ sampled an old Go-Go’s hit and I was nearly trampled to death by a swarm of gay men who just had to get the beat.

My luck had gone from bad to worse. At least Frank had given me his number before rejecting me; Brian didn’t hang around long enough to do the proper thing and create the façade that he wanted a relationship before giving me my rejection notice. Thank God Friday was officially over.

Alas, that meant Saturday had arrived and this Saturday meant having lunch with my mother and her best friend, Audrey, at the Secaucus Diner. Normally it was a fun event during which I would let the ladies tell me all about the wild adventures of the tenants of the Salvatore DeNuccio Towers and allow myself to get caught up in the pandemonium, but this Saturday would be different. It would be the Saturday after losing not one, but two, potential boyfriends. I would have to wear a smile tighter than Priscilla Presley’s.

“Steven, what’s wrong with you?” my mother asked instead of saying hello.

“Hello to you too, Ma,” I replied, ignoring her question. “Hi, Audrey, how are you?”

Audrey Pizzarelli is my mother’s best friend. She is a Sicilian widow like my mother and similar to her in almost every single way except that she dyes her hair jet black, is thirty pounds heavier, wears polyester twill jumpsuits from the ’70s with color-coordinated neckerchiefs, and has been dying for the past twenty years. It’s a self-diagnosis disputed by every doctor in the tri-state area, but one that Audrey clings to as tightly as I cling to the dream that I will someday meet the man of my dreams. Everyone has to cling to something.

“I found a lump,” Audrey declared with undeniable pride.

“It’s a mosquito bite,” my mother corrected.

“Since when do mosquitoes bite in October?” Audrey asked.

“You were down at the swamps again.”

“I was not.”

“Yes, you were! Rosemary saw you.”

“That friggin’ Rosemary! She’s always spying on me!”

“You were on her daughter’s property. Lori Ann lives right next to the swamp.”

“That is no reason to spy on someone.”

“Excuse me, Audrey?”

“Yes, Steven dear?”

“What were you doing down at the swamps?”

“Stealing flowers,” my mother answered. “Again!”

“Orchids! I wanted an orchid.”

“So buy one. Rocco left you a very wealthy widow.”

“Why should I spend Rocco’s money when they have perfectly fine orchids in the swamps? My granddaughter, Caitlin, told me that her science class grows the most gorgeous orchids in the swamps.”

“So you’ve made Caitlin an accessory to theft!” my mother declared. “You should feel very proud of yourself, Audrey. Very proud.”

“Anjanette, enough!” Audrey shouted, causing heads to turn at the Secaucus Diner. “Is it a crime to steal beauty? Is it? No, I do not think so. Now Steven, what’s wrong with you? You look unhappy.”

If Audrey was a criminal, she was a perceptive one.

“I’m fine. Just a little tired. We went out last night.”

“We as in you and your friends?” my mother asked. “Or we as in ‘Mother, I’d like to introduce you to my new boyfriend’?”

“Ma! Could you save the humiliation for when we’re alone?”

“Oh please, your mother tells me everything about your personal life. Nothing is sacred between us. I’m so glad your rash turned out to be nothing.”

“Waitress!”

Luckily the only thing my mother loves more than prying into my life is prying into her meal. She loves her food immensely, so while she ate I had a few moments to talk about the more superficial aspects of my life and make it appear as if everything was fine in the Land of Steven. I wasn’t sure if my mother was buying it, but the second I mentioned Lucas Fitzgerald and how excited he was to be part of their upcoming Christmas variety show, all thoughts of her son’s potential depression were overshadowed by her own thoughts of superstardom among the senior set.

“I cannot wait to see Paula D’Agostino’s face when Roger from
If Tomorrow Never Comes
starts to sing ‘White Christmas’ at my show. He will sing ‘White Christmas,’ won’t he, Steven? He knows how much we love that song, does he not?”

“Everybody loves Bing,” Audrey confirmed.

“Yes, Mother, Lucas knows ‘White Christmas’ is a deal-breaker.”

“Good. Paula is going to have a heart attack and drop dead before we serve the main course once she hears that. And she deserves it, after all the grief she has put us through.”

“You are so right, Anj,” Audrey said. “Between her size-four dresses, which I think are really eights if you want to know my opinion, and her friggin’ daughter….”

“Do not even get me started on her kid! I hate her!”

“Ma, what did Paula’s daughter ever do to you?” I asked.

“She has given her mother years of bragging rights! All that comes out of Paula’s mouth is how successful her daughter is because she works on the
Today
show. I thought for sure the show would tank after Katie left and then Paula would have to admit that working in the soaps isn’t such a dumb career move.”

“Paula D’Agostino thinks working in the soaps is a dumb career move?”

“Yes! She ain’t so nice anymore, is she, Stevie?”

“I never liked her,” I finally declared.

“That’s my boy.”

I had to admit that my mother was right. Maybe if I stripped myself of all social decorum and allowed myself to really listen to someone’s comments, I too could be insightful. But I would soon realize that even my mother didn’t know everything about everybody.

“Lenny, come join us,” Anjanette demanded. “Steven, this is Lenny Abramawitz. He, like you, is gay.”

As Secaucus’s only Jewish “out” senior citizen, Lenny Abramawitz had a certain reputation with the ladies. As he sat down and I got a good look at him, I realized he also had an old-fashioned reputation. Lenny was Sebastian’s ramgeezer.

Thank God I had already taken the last bite of my chicken parmigiana sandwich, so there was no danger of it getting lodged in my throat. But Lenny’s skin grew so pale the liver spots on his hands stood out like neon signs. If you connected the liver dots they would probably spell out I AM A DIRTY OLD MAN.

“Hello, Lenny,” I said. “It’s nice to…
finally
meet you.”

Sometimes acting as if you actually lived in a soap opera did have its benefits. I waited for Lenny’s response and something curious happened: Lenny acted like the perfect soap opera villain. He regained his composure, straightened his posture, and spoke in an affected whisper.

“Hello, Steven,” Lenny said. “I’ve heard so much about you. It’s a pleasure to…finally meet you too.”

To paraphrase the soldier from
Les Miserables
, I was agog and I was aghast that Lenny mimicked my timing and paused before uttering the word
finally
while arching
his
eyebrow. The old geezer knew that I knew that he was a dirty old geezer, but he also knew that I was put into the age-old gay dilemma. Should I expose Lenny for the go-go boy–buying old fart that he was, thereby confirming what many already believed—that gay men were hedonists and only looking to flit from pleasurable experience to pleasurable experience instead of settling for a life of heterosexual misery? Or keep Lenny’s secret, thereby condoning Lenny’s morally questionable behavior? But who was I to judge someone else’s actions when only a few days ago I had run out on a man cursed with a minipenis and then fallen head over heels in love with a guy whose last name was still a mystery to me?

“Will you be performing any special acts in the Christmas show?” I asked.

“Why yes, I hope so,” Lenny replied. “Though I haven’t found the perfect costar yet. Would you like to audition for the role?”

I could not believe my ears. Lenny Abramawitz was coming on to me in front of my mother! If only I had Priscilla Presley’s smooth, expressionless veneer of a face, so it wouldn’t be so hard to hide my outrage.

“I don’t think that would be fair to all the others who could really benefit from your generosity. Mother tells me you’re a very giving man.”

“He is,” Anjanette confirmed. “Lenny was just telling us that he likes to help out young men of mixed-race descent who are having trouble financially.”

“We think it’s a beautiful thing,” Audrey added. “Something we would never do because we’re widows and cannot afford to be so generous, but a beautiful thing all the same.”

“And do you engage in such activity for purely altruistic purposes, Leonard?” I asked, “Or do you benefit from your generosity as well?”

“My only benefit is the joy of knowing I’ve helped point some young man’s head in the right direction.”

My chicken parmigiana gurgled violently in the pit of my stomach; the only direction Lenny wanted a young man’s head to go was south toward his withered dick. I choked out my next sentence: “That is a beautiful thing.”

Like two teenaged girls at their first boy-girl dance, my mother and Audrey left the table to use the restroom, leaving me face-to-face with Lenny. Horrified, I felt as if I was staring into the face of my future. If I didn’t find a man to share my life with I could end up living the life of Lenny Abramawitz: having sex with strangers and then lying about my escapades to Anjanette and her friends. The horror I felt worsened as I realized this was in some ways the life I was already living.

“What will it take to keep you quiet?” Lenny asked, cutting right to the chase.

“What makes you think anything can prevent me from telling my mother the truth?”

“I have a reputation, young man, that I do not want spoiled,” Lenny began. “I also have needs that I need to fulfill and I think you may have noticed that there aren’t a lot of romantic possibilities for me at the Salvatore DeNuccio Towers unless I want to go back into the suffocating closet that I called home for the first seventy-four years of my life. Is that what you’re suggesting I do?”